Midterm Exam

Please respond to six (6) of the following questions using short answer format. 

You may use your books and notes. Please cite all sources you use during the exam.

Spend about 10 minutes responding to each question for a total of about 60 minutes.

Email your responses to me no later than 10:50 am on Thursday, February 28. My email address is: pandrews@ndnu.edu

1) Why is citizen participation essential in a democracy? Why is it essential to any human society according to the body of thought known as Catholic Social Teaching? Discuss several kinds of participation in addition to the act of voting. 

2) Discuss the relationships between local, state and federal levels of government. Why do we need all three in the United States? If you were forced to argue in favor of eliminating one of these three levels of government, which would it be? Why? What would be the impact of eliminating this level of government?

3) What is “devolution?” How is it related to the political principal of subsidiarity? Give examples of each.

4) Distinguish between “lobbyists,” “interest groups,” and “PACs.” Provide concrete examples of each using the experiences of either your community partner or one of our speakers. Is your CP/the speaker a lobbyist? An interest group? A PAC? Does your CP / the speaker hire such individuals or groups?

5) The authors of your textbook note that “the condition of contemporary American political parties has been described with words such as decline, decay, and demise” (93). Do you agree that this describes American political parties in 2019? Give examples to support your answer.

6) What is meant by the “capacity” of a government or an organization? Using a local government or your community partner as an example, where does the government or CP reach the limits of its capacity? What would help expand its capacity?

7) In what ways is your community partner an active or passive participant in the community in which it operates? Does it provide opportunities for volunteers to be active or passive participants? Use the criteria outlined in Figure 4.1 on page 71 of your textbook to guide your answer.

8) Our speakers so far have been people whose individual efforts made significant changes on a local, state and/or national level. Choose one of our speakers and describe what he/she did, what changes resulted from his/her efforts, what tools of state or local government did he/she use to make change? What other factors do you think were instrumental in his/her success?